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Let it Grow: the founder story

Words by Silke Tijkotte

Silke Tijkotte always knew she would work with plants and flowers growing up. More than just a personal passion, she tells us about the increasing urgency to bring greenery into our urban lifestyles as the world around us changes rapidly and her reasons for planting the seed for Let it Grow.

Plants and flowers have always played an important role in my life. When I was a young girl, I would go to the flower market every Sunday with my mother. She would point at the stalls and tell me, ‘Silke, you’re going to work here when you’re old enough’. And true enough, when I turned 16, I got a job selling flowers at the market. Today, I work for Royal FloraHolland, the largest flower auction in the world. My job can be incredibly demanding and so can a hectic city life in Amsterdam, but being surrounded by greenery gives me a chance to rest and find focus.

This is just one of the ways that plants and flowers improve our urban lifestyles. As cities expand, it’s now more important than ever to highlight their value. It has been reported that in 30 years, more than half of the world’s population will live in cities. High-stress levels can be an unfortunate psychological effect of fast-paced city living. But as urban areas grow, we must also learn to cope with pressing environmental problems: rising air temperature, rocketing pollution levels and damaging rainfall runoff. All of these factors impact how we live our lives.

Although it might sound bleak, there are those who are standing up and taking action, arming themselves with plants and flowers, shovel and spade, to combat these issues. Studies have shown how greenery can positively impact our moods. By incorporating green into urban infrastructure, we can also naturally filter pollution and cool air temperature. By creating grassy rooftops, developing urban farms or simply designing products that make it easier to keep the odd houseplant in your apartment, people are finding new green solutions to drastically improve the quality of our city lives.

This is why I started Let it Grow, we want to provide a platform that facilitates these innovators and encourages entrepreneurship and creativity within the floriculture sector. Through this, we can establish new ways to reconnect city dwellers with plants and flowers and create happier and healthier cities.